Tools Featured in this Teardown

Introduction

The Apple Watch is one step closer to a super spy accessory with its Series 3 capable of making phone calls. What does a watch look like when Apple sticks a phone in it? Since teardowns are our calling we figure we'll dial right in!

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This teardown is not a repair guide. To repair your Apple Watch Series 3, use our service manual.

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Many Bothans died to bring us this information. Just kidding. This image is courtesy of the friendly X-ray experts at Creative Electron.

While the overall layout is fairly unchanged from the original Apple Watch we tore down and X-rayed in 2015, it looks like there may be a few extra solder pads under the speaker (top right of this image).

We're curious to see how Apple managed to beef up the battery while still leaving room for the added functionality of cellular antennas, radios, power amplifiers, SIM card, and so on—all in the same form factor as before.

After a comparison of X-Ray picture above with the teardown, we came to believe that there are at least 3-4 chips missing on the teardown, and they’re most likely located under the “S3” marked radiator sink, glued to it from the other side. These chips likely include the Apple CPU itself, the modem and possibly the RF.

The watch back is ceramic on the GPS + Cellular Series 3, but it’s composite on the GPS-only model. Previous watches have had a composite or ceramic back, never sapphire or Ion-X. Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204507

Resources

Repairability

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